A Bad Case of Christmas Spirit
by endless cereal
Summary: Wherein there is pickpocketing, chocolate, three demigods, and rather bit of rather fluffy snow. /Entry for the Jingle Bells Rock Christmas Fic Exchange at the Ghost Writer's Headquarters Forum. For SydneyLouWho.


This is a giftfic for the Christmas Fic Exchange at the Ghost Writer's Headquarters. Apologies for the god-awful title, I drew a bit of a blank. Also drew a bit of a blank with the entire story? Eh, when in doubt, go fluffy, sarcastic, and canon.

_Prompts: hot chocolate, snow angels, walking in a winter wonderland_

_Unbeta'd._

_This is a disclaimer._

_For Syddie._

* * *

_A Bad Case of Christmas Spirit_

_by_ **strategically placed dolphins**

* * *

"'_Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house_—"

"Alleyway, I think you mean," Thalia cuts in.

"_Tha-_lia!" scolds Annabeth. "Be quiet, Luke was telling me a story; I've never _heard_ this story before."

"All right, I'll be quiet. But, uh, _spoiler alert_, the noise is Santa Claus." Annabeth looks up at her, scandalized, and Luke groans, letting his head fall back onto the brick wall behind him.

"Really, Thals? You're ruining Christmas Eve, you know."

"I don't even want to hear the story anymore," Annabeth says. She huffs, and watches the fog from her breath fade away. "You've taken all of the appeal out of it, Thalia."

Thalia grins at them and sticks her tongue out. "You wouldn't like the next part, anyway, kid. It says there are no mice stirring, which would be _dishonest_, you know, since there's, like, a whole nest of 'em over there." She nods her head towards the opposite corner of the alley, where there're a lot of not-so-mysterious scratching noises coming from behind a pile of garbage.

Annabeth wrinkles her nose and looks up at Luke. "Can we stay somewhere else tonight? We've been here for a while, anyway, and the monsters will start to notice soon."

He glances at Annabeth's expectant gaze, and then over her head at Thalia, who simply smiles.

"Alright," Luke says, standing up with a grin. He offers a hand to Annabeth and Thalia, who both scoff at him and push themselves up.

They dust themselves off, gather their weapons and exit the alleyway as nonchalantly as possible.

Thalia notices that there's a hospital across the street, so she turns to them, grins, and darts off, tossing a "Be right back!" over her shoulder. Luke raises his eyebrows, and Annabeth sighs and leans against the wall.

When she gets to the hospital doors, she pauses and straightens herself up as much as possible, so maybe people will think that's she's got some sort of hobo-chic thing going on, instead of actually being homeless.

She makes it to the room labeled "Lounge" without so much as a suspicious glare, and she even gets a few "Merry Christmas!"es. She mentally cackles when she takes in the room, but stays silent without—there's a man with his head on the table, asleep, and sticking halfway out of his back pocket is his wallet.

Thalia pulls the wallet out casually and opens it. There's a pretty good amount of cash—two hundred dollars or so in tens and fives. Thalia thinks it's kind of stupid, walking around with that much money on you, but what does she know? She pulls out all of the money and hesitates, before putting half back in and carefully sliding the wallet back into the snoring man's pocket. It's Christmas, after all.

She turns towards the vending machines and finally gets to what she came in to do—buy pseudo-gifts for Luke and Annabeth. She happens to know what all of their favorite candies are, from a few rounds of boredom-induced 20 Questions, so that takes her all of two minutes.

Then she sees it—one of those coffee vending machines, that sell too-sweet coffee and hot chocolate. Hot chocolate—gods, Thalia hasn't had hot chocolate in years. Her mother used to make it for her every Christmas, back when she was really little, and they'd each steal one of the cookies that had been left out for Santa.

On a whim, she buys French vanilla hot chocolates for the three of them. She probably should've gotten coffee for herself, since it's her turn for guard duty tonight, but nostalgia wins out. There are lids on a counter next to the machine, thank the gods, so she sticks the candy and the leftover money in her pockets, sticks one of the cups in the crook of her elbow, and holds one in each hand. She has to push the lounge door open with her back, but one of the nurses at the front desk rushes over to hold the entrance door open for her.

Thalia grins at her and nods her head in thanks. "Thank you, ma'am." There's not even a hint of snark, surprisingly enough.

"Of course, sweetie. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas!" Thalia calls over her shoulder.

When she reaches Luke and Annabeth, she realizes that it's snowing. Annabeth grins up at her, red cheeked, and Luke scowls at the sky. "Merry Christmas, Scrooge." She shoves one of the cups in his hand and snorts when some splashes out on his hand. He yelps, and turns his glare to her.

"You too, Annabeth. Yours comes without attitude, since you're not hurting the poor sky's feelings." Annabeth smiles even wider and says thank you when Thalia hands her the hot chocolate, and when she pulls her gift out of her jacket pocket—Twizzlers and Reese's Cups—Annabeth throws her arms around her middle and hugs her as tightly as she can.

"Thank you, Thalia."

She smiles down at her, and then turns to Luke with raised eyebrows. "If you apologize, I _might_ give you yours."

"Sorry," he says immediately. He might be a swordsman and a demigod, but he's still a teenaged boy, and he still loves candy. She tosses it at his head, because he didn't sound like he meant it, and sips at her hot chocolate.

"Hey, Thals," begins Luke around a mouthful of Hershey's chocolate, "Didn't you get anything for yourself?"

Thalia pulls the money out of her pocket, holds it up, and grins at the look on his face. "C'mon, kiddies," she says straightening up. "Let's go find somewhere to sleep tonight."

They walk around for an hour or so, before Annabeth freezes and gasps. "Look, Thalia!" she cries ecstatically. "There's a _park_. With a _bathroom_. And _Christmas lights_. And a _historical complex_." She grins hugely. It's kind of weird, because Annabeth's usually pretty somber for a seven-year-old kid, but Thalia supposes she has a bad case of Christmas Spirit.

"What, exactly, is a historical complex?" asks Luke.

"It's kind of like a bunch of old buildings? And they move them to one place, kind of like a museum or something. The locks are usually pretty simple."

The three of them grin at each other, before jumping the low gate, which is obviously made for keeping out cars and not homeless children.

They make their way through the snow and over the playground, to the light-lined walking trail. After a silent conversation between Thalia and Luke, they decide to check out the lights before they find a place to sleep. Even Thalia, who recoils from sentimentality and fantasy-esque things in general, admits that it's kind of magical, with the snow and the lights the fake reindeer and the lights making an archway over a bridge.

They make it to the historical complex, eventually, and set Luke on breaking into an old one-room schoolhouse—he _is_ a child of Hermes, after all. The girls wait for him under a gazebo. It's covered in lights, too. This park spares no expense come Christmas, apparently.

After a bit, Thalia notices Annabeth sending furtive looks at the undisturbed snow in front of the schoolhouse. "Hey, kid," she says, nudging her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"It's just—it's kind of silly, but I always wanted to make a snow angel. My dad used to take me to the beach and we'd make sand angels instead, but it's not the same."

"You know what, Annabeth, now that you mention it, I've always kind of wanted to make a snow angel, too." They grin at each other for a moment, and then race out of the gazebo.

Five minutes later, they lie on their backs and stare up at the moon, letting the snowflakes land on their faces. "Thalia?" asks Annabeth quietly.

"Mhmm?"

"This is my first Christmas without my family."

"Hey, don't be sad, Annabeth." Thalia turns to face her and gives her a gentle, lopsided smile. "We're your family now, too, and we always will be."

She stands up delicately and brushes herself off. "C'mon, kid." She offers Annabeth her hands and heaves her up, careful not to disturb their snow angels. "Let's go see what's taking Luke so long."

Apparently _nothing_ was taking Luke so long. He's leaning against the side of the building, watching them and smiling. "Hello, children," he says. Thalia pushes him down.

Thalia sits and stares out the window twenty minutes later, after denying about a hundred offers from Luke to take over her guard duty, "For Christmas," he says. She can hear him in the opposite corner of the room, whispering the last of _'Twas the Night Before Christmas_ to Annabeth.

"Goodnight, Thals," Annabeth calls out sleepily.

"Goodnight. Merry Christmas," echoes Luke.

"Merry Christmas to you two, too. Now go to sleep."

"Wake me up if you get tired—"

"Yeah, uh-huh, shut up."

She hears their breathing even out and deepen a bit after a while. Thunder rolls across the sky. "Yeah, yeah, Merry Christmas to you, too," she mutters. She rolls her eyes, and watches as the snow slowly covers the snow angels completely.


End file.
